MillaMia Ornaments and Stockings

The other day I was walking through a major chain store and
noticed they were putting out Halloween candy. How can that be? It’s not even
Labor Day and the Halloween candy is being displayed!

But it got me thinking about the holidays and how they will
be upon us shortly. In fact there are less than 20 weeks left until Christmas.
Yikes!

This year I am going to be ready. I swear I am. Really.

That means I need to start thinking about my Christmas
knitting now.

I have two sets of friends who got married this year and
they will have their first holiday traditions with their own blended families.
I would imagine that this will include a bigger tree that the mini ones they
have had in the past, which means they will need more ornaments to fill the
branches. So as soon as I saw the ornament kits from MillaMia, I knew what I would be
making them for the holidays.

One of my friends is a little more traditional, so for her I
will be using the Classic kit.

Scarlet, Snow, Midnight and Forget Me Not are the four
colors that will adorn her tree this year (and hopefully many more).

My other friend is a little bolder with her color choices,
so for her ornaments I will use the Bright kit.

Here the traditional colors of Christmas (Scarlet and Grass)
are punctuated by Peacock and Daisy Yellow.

Each of the kits comes with four balls of Naturally Soft Merino in the colors listed, above and
four ornament patterns - all packaged in a nice container. The kit will make at
least seven ornaments, in different combinations.

Because each of the ornaments is small, they will knit up
pretty quickly. I have a feeling it will be one of those things that once you
finish one, you will want to cast on for another one right away. Kind of like
eating M&Ms, you can’t stop with one.

It’s a good thing these will go quickly, because they aren’t
the only ones on my Christmas knitting list. I have another friend who recently
had her first child. And there is no stocking that will be good enough for him…unless
it is hand knit by his honorary auntie.

I think I am going to make him the Snowflake Stocking (also from MillaMia) on the left. The Fair Isle motif is the
only section that you need to pay close attention to, so it will be good TV
knitting.

And of course his parents can’t have stockings that aren’t
as nice as his, so each of them will be getting a cabled stocking – one in
Scarlet and the other in Snow.

Pro tip – if you are making a stocking for a new child and
you are fairly certain the parents plan on more than one child, it might be a
good idea to make more stockings than the one you need this year. That way in a
few years all you have to do is pull it out of your closet, give it a steam and
wrap it up! I did this once before and found it very helpful.

Have you starting thinking about your holiday knitting yet?
The clock is ticking…